


The thrum of your pulse against my own

by itsallAvengers



Series: Pulse-Point [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers Family, Domestic Fluff, Electrocution, Fluff and Angst, HOW DO YOU GET ELECTROCUTED TO THE POINT OF CARDIAC ARREST LIKE TWICE IN 48 HOURS, Heart Attacks, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Slice of Life, Steve Rogers Feels, steve is a dumbass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 14:05:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17768186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsallAvengers/pseuds/itsallAvengers
Summary: A peek into the life of Steve Rogers and Tony Stark- the ups, the downs, and the occasional cardiac arrest





	The thrum of your pulse against my own

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kellerkind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kellerkind/gifts).



> Commissioned by Kellerkind, who wanted a sequel to Going Steady! Hope that this is everything you wanted :)

Steve awoke softly, gently, quietly, as he always did when pulling himself out from the grip of a horrible nightmare.

He wasn’t sure why he reacted so anticlimactically to whatever terrors woke him from sleep, but he always had, his whole life. They never forced him awake- never ripped screams from his throat or caused him to shake. He simply lay, ‘stiff as a board’ as Tony put it, until eventually the nightmare was either bad enough to jerk him out of unconsciousness, or it merely passed by and disappeared into haze of memories and dreamscape. In every sense of the word, Steve was trapped within the confines of his own head until the nightmare decided to let him go.

Steve gasped a little, feeling a sharp stinging behind his eyes as he sucked in a small breath. Already, the nightmare was starting to blur back into nothingness- he could hardly even remember what it was about. All he could remember was Tony screaming; the sound ripping out of his throat violently, agonised, as if seconds away from death.

That was how Steve’s dreams stuck with him. Not in the sights, but the sounds. The sensations. The taste of blood on the back of his throat that just never seemed to shift, even when it wasn’t really there at all.

He swallowed and pursed his lips, rolling his head to the side and looking at Tony, who was curled up like a hedgehog just under Steve’s shoulder. Seeing as Steve probably hadn’t moved a muscle for an hour, Tony had not even been remotely disturbed, and was comfortably tucked into Steve’s side, one hand resting slack across his midsection while the other lay slack against his chest. Steve smiled softly at him, taking a few more deep breaths as he steadied himself back into reality.

Tony was okay. He was okay. It had just been a dream.

Slowly, he lifted a shaking hand off the bed and tentatively intertwined it with Tony’s own, feeling the comforting warmth of his partner’s grasp. Tony hummed imperceptibly and squeezed his fingers before they went lax again, and Steve let his thumb settle ever so softly down upon Tony’s slender wrist. Steve’s hands were so much bigger than Tony’s; he enveloped them easily, and he kind of loved that. He loved that it felt as if Tony was simply made to fit him, perfect and right.

But when he tried to close his eyes a second later, the sound of the man’s distant screaming filled his ears once more, coming back to him like a horrible record stuck on repeat.

He tensed up in bed once more and pulled his eyes open immediately, cursing inwardly. The nightmares had been abating, recently- but it was never perfect, and Steve was always preparing for another downward spiral. They came and went, just as everything else did. It just seemed tonight was one of those nights where they came and then lingered, however.

A distraction was what he needed. He was tired, he didn’t want to get out of bed unless he really had to, so he’d simply have to find a way to relax. Persuade himself to shut his eyes without hearing… that.

Steve turned his eyes back on Tony, and a second later his mouth ticked upward in fondness as the thought struck him.

Settling back down on the bed, he shuffled his head just a little bit closer down toward Tony and then took one long breath, filling up his lungs so he wouldn’t need to breathe for a minute or so. He stared up at the ceiling, letting his body go still and his ears focus on the expansive quiet of the room. For a few seconds, he couldn’t quite focus on it properly, but then-

_Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump._

Steve kept very still, allowing his enhanced senses to pick up on the faint beats of Tony’s heart, so quiet they were hardly audible at all, even to him. They were most certainly there though, soft and reassuring and constant. A steady beat. An anchor.

_Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump._

Steve had always loved that sound. He always worried one day it would stop, too, but for now, Tony was very much alive, and his heart still beat. Steve could hear it for himself. It was a truly beautiful noise. The sound of life. The sound of everything Steve held dear, encompassed into one person currently drooling lightly against his ribs. He’d told himself to stop worrying so much over the other man after the whole embarrassing ‘I thought you were having a heart attack and crashed through your glass wall in order to try and save you’ debacle- but still. It was so deeply ingrained into Steve by that point in their relationship that he wasn’t entirely sure he’d ever be able to stop. Tony’s body was beautiful- the most beautiful thing Steve had ever seen, even- but it was also fragile. Steve wouldn’t be forgetting that fact any time soon.

He shut his eyes again, concentrating on the noise of Tony’s heart and the gentle beat of a pulse against his thumb as it settled against Tony’s wrist. The dream was nothing but a distant memory. It was fine. Tony was fine. All he could hear was the sound of his lover’s beating heart, not his screaming voice. Not any more.

Sparing himself a last few seconds simply to listen, Steve eventually opened his mouth and let out the breath he’d been holding, slow and steady so as not to wake Tony. Once he breathed again, it became even more difficult to hear any other faint sounds properly, but it was still just about audible in the quiet of their bedroom, and Steve revelled in the simple sound as sleep began to cloud his mind once more, coming back to him easily, as if he had never truly awoken at all.

He was with Tony. Tony was safe.

Steve slept.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

The next morning, he awoke to an empty bed.

Blinking blearily, he watched the sunlight filter in through the windows and lifted his head a little, following the sound of a running faucet and the buzzing of a razor. The door to the bathroom was open wide, and Steve spotted Tony leaning over the sink, delicately trimming his goatee into perfection.

Steve smiled tiredly and shuffled further up the bed. “Mornin’,” he mumbled, and Tony turned to him quickly, his own face smiling back.

“Good morning beloved,” he responded with ease, tapping the razor against the sink and shutting it off. He was still wearing his pajamas- the pants too low and exposing the wonderful V of his hips that peaked out under his slightly-too-small MIT sweater he’d had for however many years. He looked like he’d had a good night’s sleep, which made a nice change. “I have a wonderfully, beautifully free day today, and so I have decided to spend it in a wise and responsible way, as any Avenger should.”

Steve cocked his head. “Oh yeah?”

“Yep,” Tony nodded and then reached out for his toothbrush, “I’m going to do absolutely fuck-all.”

Steve chuckled and then yawned immediately after, checking the clock. 9:13 AM. They had the whole day ahead of them. “I like that plan,” he answered as he pulled back the covers and then slipped fluidly out of bed, standing straight and stretching up to the sky in order to crack his joints. He himself was only wearing some faded Thor-Themed sweatpants, and he had no doubt that his hair was sticking up on end as if a bird had been making its home there that night. His bedhead was always a damn nightmare.

Tony seemed to like it though, because when he glanced back at Steve, this time with a toothbrush in his mouth, he glanced upward at it and then laughed fondly, his eyes shining with affection. “Y’r ‘dorable,” he declared messily.

Steve grinned and wandered through the room, rubbing tiredly at his eyes as he joined Tony in the bathroom. The mirror hung that hung in front of both Tony and Steve was large enough that it pretty much covered the entire wall- an effect Steve had simply raised an eyebrow to when he’d seen it the first time. He liked it now, though. Mainly because it made it easier to see Tony from all angles when they were both in the bath together, but whatever.

He sat down on the edge of the bathtub, watching Tony lazily as the man leaned down into the sink and spat, cleaning his toothbrush under the running water before stuffing it back onto the shelf and pulling out the rest of his grooming kit. He had a whole routine, did Tony, and he kept to it religiously. Steve loved watching him do it, although he wasn’t entirely sure why. There was simply something strangely hypnotic about the way Tony took care of himself; how he gently plucked any stray hairs from his eyebrows, applied his expensive creams around his face and occasionally, if going out in public or over to important conferences, would swipe powder over his forehead and cheeks or concealer under his eyes. Seeing as this was an easy day for the two of them, however, there was none of that. Merely the basics- his toner and moisturizer, and a few little plucks of stray eyebrow hair that had grown back in.

Tony caught his eye from the reflection of the mirror and then smiled. “Perv,” he muttered.

“Oh, absolutely,” Steve admitted freely, standing up and then smacking Tony’s ass gently as he passed to grab his own toothbrush- manual, because he’d never really gotten used to the strange buzzing feeling in his mouth. Tony laughed, leaning back against Steve’s chest as he gently squeezed out some more stuff from the nearly-empty tube and then dabbed it onto different parts of his face. Steve simply brushed his teeth and watched, until two minutes were up and he leaned over the sink. Tony, however, was still going through his bag of creams and potions, rubbing all of them into his skin one by one. Steve, with nothing else to do at that point, simply rested his chin into Tony’s shoulder and then curled his arms gently around Tony’s body, resting one hand on the other man’s bare hip and his other across the cool ridge of the arc reactor. Sleepiness still hung over him like a comforting blanket and he sighed gently, shutting his eyes and relaxing forward a little. Tony was so nice to wake up to.

Tony tilted his head and then brushed his lips absently over Steve’s temple before picking up his tweezers. A second later and much to his surprise, Steve felt a sudden sting under his brow and he jumped in shock, eyes flying open to spot Tony’s amused face as he held the metal pincers in his left hand, clamped around one of Steve’s hairs. “Sorry,” he said, with a face that spoke of his complete lack of sorrow, “it was annoying me.”

Steve just huffed. “You’re an asshole.”

“Mmm,” Tony said, “which one of us is forcing me into buying shitty low-fat butter and coercing me into cutting back on caffeine?”

Steve rolled his eyes and then kissed Tony’s neck, mouth lingering against the other man’s pulse. “S’good for ya,” he murmured, “Your cholesterol’s too high.”

He felt Tony laugh. “Of all the things for you to worry about in my life, and you choose _that_ ,” he groused, but he raised his hand and pressed it over Steve’s as he said it and then turned into him so that they were chest to chest. When he leaned up to kiss Steve, his mouth tasted like toothpaste. “Go back to bed,” his voice vibrated against Steve’s mouth, soft and low, and when Steve pulled back Tony was staring up at him with stars in his eyes and a smile dancing over his face. He was so goddamn perfect.

“But I’m awake now,” Steve said sullenly, “why would I try and get back to-” he glanced down at Tony’s face- saw the way he was raising his eyebrows and biting his lip softly as he leaned further into Steve’s space, and the penny dropped suddenly, “-oh! Oh. Okay. _Bed_. Good idea.”

Tony nodded, biting down on a small laugh as he pushed Steve back with a hand on his chest and leaned up to his tippytoes in order to lock their mouths together once more. “Adorable,” he said again, softly murmured into Steve’s mouth as his fingers snuck around to the back of his neck, “and _all_ mine.”

Steve could only nod in agreement.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

They spent the day doing exactly what Tony had said: Fuck-all.

After going back to bed and then spending an hour or so lazily making love to one another, they’d whiled away a good few hours afterward simply lounging around in their room, watching episode after episode of New Girl (Tony’s choice, not Steve’s) and curled into one another. He could count the amount of times they’d been able to sleep in late together on one hand, and so Steve let himself revel in the simplicity of it; let his arms lay across Tony’s body in a comforting embrace and his head dip low, relearning all the parts of Tony that he’d been remiss about- the parts his mouth never usually touched. Tony always laughed at him when he did it; when he rolled Tony over so he was lying on his stomach and then traced each bump of the other man’s spine with his lips. It was simple, but it felt intimate. Steve loved learning and relearning him. It felt like a ritual that wouldn’t ever get old.

One they finally slid out of bed, it was 12:30. Steve wasn’t sure that he’d ever stayed in bed that long before, but he found himself not minding at all as Tony ran his hands through Steve’s uncombed hair and smiled at him with such a look of fondness on his face that a billion things wanted to fall from his mouth: _‘I love you more than anything, stay with me forever, I want to marry you one day’._ But he knew that there was a time and place for something like that- they still had things to work through before they could get there, and Steve was willing to wait. He was willing to do anything for Tony, really.

When they both stumbled into the kitchen, they all got a cheer from the rest of the team. “They emerge!” Bruce said as he threw up his hands with a grin, “what were you goddamn doing- it’s past midday, Steve, that’s not like you.”

“It must have been some truly spectacular ass you were tapping,” Natasha commented idly, raising an eyebrow at Tony, “I take my hat off to you, Stark.”

Steve blushed and rolled his eyes when Tony just winked at her. “Why thank you,” he said primly, “glute workouts _do_ pay off.”

“That’s true,” Steve said as he passed by Tony to get to the toaster, squeezing the man’s butt as he went. Tony jumped and then laughed, much to the chagrin of the present team-members.

“Guys, you were _just_ at it for like four hours in your bedroom, can you cut it out in the public kitchen?” Clint whined, shooting the both of them dirty looks, “you’re too old for this shit now.”

Tony clicked his fingers over to the elevator. “Talk about my age again and consider yourself evicted from this tower.”

Clint just rolled his eyes. “We’re all old, Tony. Even Cap’s getting grey hairs. Deal with it.”

“No,” Tony told him petulantly, “I’m still 23 and I won’t hear any other opinions on the matter, thank you. Steve can attest.”

From the kitchen counter where he was preparing his toast, Steve smiled. “Sure you are sweetheart,” he responded absently, lifting a hand to his temple where, as Clint had said, the first few strands of grey were just beginning to grow through. He’d known that he was aging early on, but he was still strangely happy when he’d seen the proof for himself. The thought of having to slowly watch everyone else grow old around him was one he dared not even entertain.

Tony hopped onto the counter next to Steve’s side and threw a warm smile over to him, and Steve shook the train of thought away. He didn’t have to worry about that now. “You want some?” He said to the other man, waving to the bread. Tony nodded and so Steve popped another two slices in for him, accepting a kiss on the cheek in gratitude.

They ate their breakfast Slash lunch together with the team amicably, Tony tracing absent patterns into Steve’s hand whilst he chewed inattentively at his toast, and Steve reading the day’s paper. They were the only pair still in their pajamas, having decided there was no need for them to change out of them that day, and Steve grinned fondly every time he glanced sideways and saw the little cartoon shields that were dotted all over Tony’s oversized sweatshirt. Tony had admitted to him once, that he’d used to have a Captain America shield tattooed on his hip when he’d been younger- a drunken dare from Rhodey that he’d never bothered to remove until Steve had actually been pulled out of the ice. Steve mourned at the fact he’d never been able to see it for himself- he was man enough to admit that the sight of Tony wearing something of _his_ , something that permanent, was unbearably hot.  

One day, maybe he’d get to put something else a little permanent on Tony, in the region of his left hand. But man- until then, he really did wish he’d been around during the time when the tattoo was too.

The team slowly filtered out after a while, heading off to various jobs and rooms and meetings and whatnot, until eventually it was Tony and Steve with the communal floor to themselves. They floated over to the living room and then got comfy on the couch sat directly in front of the TV, Tony stacking himself lazily across Steve and then resting his cheek into the warmth of Steve’s sternum. The more relaxed Tony was, the more catlike he tended to become, and so Steve was hardly even surprised when, a few minutes and some gentle hair-stroking later, Tony began to do what Steve could only describe as purring. He smiled and chuckled softly, twirling his finger through a curl at the back of Tony’s neck and then listening to the way Tony hummed deep in the back of his throat, happy and content and already half asleep again. They were watching some movie on Tv- The Princess Bride, it looked like- but Steve couldn’t really say he was concentrating. Far more important things were happening right under his nose.

Tony slapped him on the arm. “Asshole,” he muttered sleepily.

“That was a little undeserved,” Steve said with a pout, “I didn’t even do anything.”

“You’re laughing at my noises.”

“I’m not laughing at your purring-“

“If you call it that _one more time_ I’m getting a fucking divorce,” Tony snapped, and Steve shook his head, pressing his fingertips down gently at the back of Tony’s head and scratching, pulling another impromptu purr from the other man’s mouth before Tony could even help himself.

“You’d have to marry me before we can get divorced,” he mumbled through a warm smile, “and I feel like that would be a bit of a waste of time.”

Tony just harrumphed, surreptitiously pushing his head into Steve’s hand and pouting. “You’ve known me for how many years, and you still don’t think I’d be capable of marrying you purely for the drama of it all?”

He looked down at Tony with a raised eyebrow, before leaning forward and popping a delicate kiss against his hairline. “No,” he said simply, “I don’t.”

Tony looked at him for a moment as if he were holding back a soft smile, but he managed to disguise it with an exaggerated roll of his eyes and a huff as his head dropped back into Steve’s chest defeatedly. “Don’t make this all romantic,” he mumbled, “I was trying to be Extra.”

“Tony, sweetheart, I love you, but you gotta stop using the internet slang Peter tells you or I’m going to have to divorce you first.”

“Hey, you don’t have divorce rights, I already declared _I’d_ be the divorcer!”

“I don’t think there’s a pecking order to it, really-“

“There absolutely is, and I’m at the top of it. End of discussion.” Tony waved a hand and then settled it across Steve’s mouth finally, and that was that. With one last eye-roll, Steve settled his own arms back around the small of Tony’s back and returned to watching the movie that was on in front of them, happily whiling away the time as Tony simply curled into him and took intermittent naps, splitting them up with small ramblings that Steve hummed and nodded to as if he understood any of the technical jargon that Tony was saying. It was pretty boring, really. Which was perfect. Completely, totally perfect. Steve could spend the rest of his life being boring with Tony. He figured they’d seen enough excitement to last an eternity, by that point in their superheroing careers. They could move out, buy a farm or something in the middle of nowhere. Maybe have a few kids- Steve had always wanted some, even when he knew it was unlikely to ever happen, and Tony was an angel around them. He’d be perfect as a dad, Steve just knew it.

A farm and kids and Tony and nothing else. Yeah- Steve would be more than happy with that.

“What’re you smiling at,” Tony mumbled, propping his chin up against Steve’s sternum and looking at him questioningly, and Steve blinked, realising that Tony was right and a fond, absent-minded smile had been plastered over his face for the duration of his little daydream.

He looked down at the man he loved and simply shook his head, his hand stroking up and down Tony’s back. “Things,” he responded cryptically, and when Tony frowned, Steve just smiled harder, “things possibly pertaining to you.”

And just like that, Tony’s interest had been piqued. “What things,” he pressed, sitting up further onto his elbows and raising his eyebrows questioningly, “dirty things? I like those sorts of things.”

Steve sighed and then lay his head back onto the cushion so that his gaze was on the ceiling. “Sappy things,” he admitted easily, before poking Tony in the underarms and huffing as Tony yelped and collapsed back onto his chest reflexively. He wondered what Tony would look like, away from all the glitz and the glamour of their New York lives. Whether he’d let his hair silver out a bit, whether he’d stop putting in contacts and start just wearing his glasses. Obviously though, whatever happened, he would still look just as beautiful, of that Steve had no doubt. Tony was incapable of _not_ being perfect, in Steve’s humble opinion.

He knew the little dream wouldn’t happen- realistically, they just weren’t built for that, and there would always be another emergency they felt obligated to help out with, but… well. It was just nice to wish, that was all.

Tony kissed his chest and then brushed his fingers across the mark absently, smiling up at him with a look of softness etched over his face. “If it helps,” he said quietly as he took Steve’s hand and locked their fingers together with a gentle caress of his fingers, “I’m thinking sappy things too.”

Steve looked down at their hands, watching Tony lift away and brush his fingertips over the back of Steve’s palm, trailing over his knuckles, joints- carefully stroking around Steve’s ring finger, just for a second before sliding away again. They both smiled, lost in the thoughts of a million different things.

One day, Steve hoped. One day.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

The days of summer passed them by in a haze of work and team-nights and trying to help Peter pass his course at MIT without dropping out or becoming a coke addict. The normal stuff, really. Apart from the superpowers and aliens.

Then again, it was New York. Not even _that_ was particularly unusual any more.

These days, the Avengers weren’t called out to fight as often as they’d used to- there were more superhumans there to deal with the lower level stuff, and Avengers were usually an Emergency-Only call. Of course, that didn’t mean that their days were any less busy, of course. For some reason, the list of things to do never quite seemed to cease, and so Steve took special pleasure in finally closing the last file or throwing the last punch before he allowed himself to go and finally take a break back in the communal rooms. There’d usually be some sort of food lying around- the team ate at different times except for Sunday Dinner which they did as a unit, and so Steve, being one of the later workers, was usually left to pick at the remains. He didn’t really mind. That was the way he’d grown up, and Bruce sure knew how to knock up a good curry anyway.

Tonight wasn’t one of those nights, though. Steve had been called out for active duty that day alongside the rest of the Avengers, and so they’d spent most of the afternoon and evening in battle with a new wave of robots that had almost managed to take London. It had been hard, and tiring, and Steve had come home sore but miraculously uninjured. The same couldn’t be said for Tony, though.

“ _Don’t you ever_ do that to me again,” was the first thing that Steve had said to the other man when they’d arrived home, slamming the door of their bedroom behind him as Tony had muttered something foul under his breath and limped back over to the direction of the bathroom, his head turned away from Steve. “You have _any fucking idea_ how it sounds to hear you screaming through the comm like that as you fall through the air without your fucking suit-“

“-Yeah, Steve, surprisingly enough that wouldn’t have been my chosen method of transport either,” Tony had snapped back at him as he’d begun to unzip the tattered undersuit, covered in tears from where his body had rolled across the concrete, “unfortunately I didn’t have much choice.”

“You had no choice because you ran into that situation _knowing_ what those things could and would do to your suit,” Steve snarled, waving a hand through the air in frustration, “that was the most fortified sector, I _said_ stay back, let the people who weren’t susceptible to machine failure go in and handle it but you never fucking listen to me-“

“Right, sure, and all those people who ended up surviving because of my disobedience don’t count for shit,” Tony told him, “of course, all you give a shit about is me not doing what you asked. Fucking typical.”

“It’s not-“ and Steve hated this, hated how every single time they went through the same conversation, over and over like a broken fucking record. He’d wanted to tell Tony that he wasn’t angry because he’d disobeyed, he was angry because Tony had gone in there and taken down the main router and then _been pushed off a building without his suit._ Luckily Steve had seen him go, and managed to scream at Sam to get to him before he fell, which he did, but that wasn’t the fucking point. He’d nearly died, and yet all Tony thought Steve gave a shit about was the part where Tony hadn’t listened.

Sometimes he wondered if he would ever actually get through into Tony’s head that he gave more than just a half-damn about his fucking wellbeing. It felt like a losing battle, every time they did this.

“You have _got_ to be more careful,” he’d settled on in the end, keeping his voice as level and calm as he could and trying not to think about the panicked way that he’d heard Tony call out for backup, call out for Steve without even realising it. “I know that you say you do the math, you calculate the risk, but one day the odds will not be in your favour and you won’t make it out, Tony, do you fucking get that? Or are you just too fucking dense to realise you’re not _actually_ invincible?”

 _“OF COURSE_ I KNOW THAT, STEVE!” Tony had yelled, spinning over to him with fire in his eyes as he’d pulled up his top lip and looked at Steve in fury, “If that hadn’t occurred to me when someone stuck a big hunk of metal in my chest, or when I got sucked into a black hole and saw what the other side of the universe looked like, or when Thanos came and stabbed me through the fucking chest, then you’ll bet I realised it when _you_ were giving it your best shot with Barnes in fucking Siberia! Don’t treat me like some sort of blind idiot, I know what kind of risks this comes with and you need to _stop_ treating me like dirt every time I do my fucking job!”

Steve could still hear the silence that had rung out in their room after that outburst. He hadn’t known quite what to say; frozen like ice to the spot as he’d stared numbly over to Tony, who’d gone still as well. His eyes were wide, shocked at his own words. They’d both agreed not to talk about… _that_ , or use it as material against the other. It’d been an unspoken rule ever since the beginning. Steve knew it was a little unrealistic, really, when in the heat of the moment, you said whatever you could to get your point across, but- well. That didn’t make it any less agonising to hear.

“I’m sorry,” Tony had blurted out the apology almost immediately afterward, however, swallowing and shaking his head, “sorry, I didn’t… that was out of line. I need to cool down. We both do. I’m gonna…. Workshop.”

Steve had just nodded, unable to do much else as Tony had limped his way back out of the room, not looking at Steve as he’d gone and then leaving him to the quiet of their empty room. Considering the way his evenings had usually gone in the weeks before this, it wasn’t a particularly welcome change.

So here he was. Alone in their bed, looking at the ceiling and thinking over everything that had happened.

He felt like a dick. He knew, in his head, that when he picked apart the things that Tony had done and berated him for it, whenever he told him to do better and got on his back over the things he’d done, it was out of concern for his safety. Steve wanted to keep him safe but he didn’t know how, so that frustration manifested more sharply than Tony deserved it to be, more cutting and unimpressed than what Tony needed.

And he knew that it must have hurt Tony a lot, because he’d… he’d talked about Siberia. Thrown that at Steve like poison, knowing it was the one way to shut him up. Pretty effective, really. There was nothing Steve could respond to that with. Tony was right. No matter how Steve wanted to try and spin it, Tony was-

He swallowed and shut his eyes, biting down on his bottom lip and feeling the tightness in his chest. Every so often, the self-hatred came back around again, just as big and strong and domineering as before. It never got easier to look at the man you loved and know that your shield had been embedded in their chest, that just an inch further would’ve killed them for good.

Steve shoved the thought violently from his mind, concentrating instead on just getting to sleep, allowing himself to rest and calm down before trying to talk to Tony about it all again. They would be fine. They’d had worse blow-ups than that, said crueller things to eachother. No one had ever tried to imply they were perfect, because it was clear to absolutely everyone that they weren’t- not by a long shot. They had issues piled up higher than the ceiling and a history that was as convoluted as you could imagine, but they got through it every time something came up. They were resilient fucks like that. It’d be okay.

 

Unfortunately however, the evening wasn’t over when he finally managed to drift off. Really, it was his fault: at this point in his life, he should’ve known not to try and sleep with that sort of heavy weight at the front of his mind, because it never mixed well with PTSD and chronic nightmares. Go fucking figure.

But he’d just… he’d been tired. And upset. And he’d thought it would be okay, just for the night. Just that once, he’d thought they might just leave him alone and let him rest. He _ached_. It’d been a long day. He wanted to sleep.

But when was the universe ever that kind?

 

 

 

_Darkness_

_and darkness and a pinprick of frail light,_

_and_

_Tony’s scream is tearing through the air in his comm, louder than anything else, more prevalent than even the hammering_

_of his own heartbeat, and he’s screaming Steve’s name as he plummets to the ground with a sickening crack-_

_-They’re dead, all of them,  
 dead and gone and_

_Steve can’t see anything now, not light or dark or colour, just grey. Just grey and the deafening nothingness that fills the void he’s in,_

_sole survivor until the end of_

_time itself-_

_-He’s got Tony pinned underneath him, suit in_

_pieces, faceplate_

_ripped off, and the screeching of metal drags against his brain, he smiles vindictively as_

_the shield is driven down and Tony’s eyes go wide_

_in shock,  
dying, the light leaving him bit by bit and Steve laughs,_

_smiles, he’s killed Iron Man, he’s murdered Tony Stark_

_Again and again and again and again and again and again and again-_

 

 

 

 

 

 

Steve woke slowly, as he always did. His hands had torn the sheets in half easily. He could taste the blood at the back of his throat.

Lurching sideways with an uncoordinated thrust, he vomited across the rug beside the bed, hacking up nothing but bile and spit as his stomach convulsed inside his midsection. He couldn’t breathe, think, hear. It was too quiet. It felt like death. Like the end of the world.

His hands, his hands were shaking, he needed to-

Fingers stretched out across cold mattress, finding it empty.

 _Dead,_ his brain supplied easily, _dead dead dead, he’s gone, he fell to his death, you stabbed him in the heart, he’s not coming back, you saw it, he’s dead, everyone’s dead, it’s the end of the universe and you’re the only one left, that’s always going to be your curse._

A whimper escaped. He shouldn’t have gone to fucking sleep. He needed Tony, but Tony wasn’t there. _Dead_ \- no, for fuck’s sake, not dead, just busy.

_Dead dead dead dead dead dead d-_

“Stop,” he whispered to himself as his eyelids clenched shut, his hands curled into his knees and he cradled himself in the middle of the ruined bed like a child, “please, please…” He didn’t even know what he was saying or to who- he could feel the tears spring up from his eyes and let them fall easily, and God, this one was a bad one, this one was really bad, he needed to take a breath and he could hear someone talking to him, probably JARVIS, but it just felt like white noise in his head. The silence was so loud it blocked everything else out.

He had to move, but he couldn’t. His limbs wouldn’t listen. He wanted Tony, but he couldn’t get him, he was too far away, too angry, and for good fucking reason. Steve didn’t deserve him. Steve never had. And who knew? Maybe Tony _was_ dead, maybe Steve’s dreams were just flashbacks, he could hardly even tell what was real and what was fake, his head was spinning, soon he’d just black out from the oxygen deprivation alone and maybe that’d stop him thinking, maybe that would be a good thing.

He felt a pressure settle down against his shoulder, a soothing voice. “Steve?” It said, “Steve, come on, breathe with me baby, get your head out of the pillow so you can take in some air, it’s okay, I’m here, I’m sorry.”

It was Tony. Come hell or high water, there was no way that Steve would ever be able to forget that voice.

He jerked upward, staring at Tony through blurry eyes before something harsh caught in his throat and he choked, hands extending of their own accord. Tony was crouched on his haunches by the bed next to Steve, but he still managed to catch Steve as he fell straight off the edge and into his embrace, arms wrapping tight to whichever limb he could hold onto and head burying itself into the warmth of Tony’s pulse point in his neck. “I’m sorry,” he whispered hysterically, taking in a small breath just to breathe Tony’s scent in and get the aroma of death and fear out of his nose, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m-“

“Shhhh,” Tony said soothingly, and Steve had no idea how Tony had even known to come in, whether JARVIS had alerted him or it’d just been a lucky coincidence, but God, Steve was glad he was here, “Shh, it’s okay, it’s alright, don’t apologise. I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

“I’m-” Steve began again, before remembering Tony had told him to stop and letting the beginning of the word sit on his throat. He shuddered violently and buried his face deep into Tony’s neck, clutching tight to the other man’s body. “I- I couldn’t… nightmare, I- I- I don’t… I just can’t lose you Tony, I can’t, I can’t do it, _please_ , I can’t-“

“I’m not going anywhere,” Tony told him smoothly, fingers stroking Steve’s floppy hair out of his face, “I’m sorry I said those things and then left you to stew over them. I should have been more considerate. I know today was hard. It’s okay now though, Steve, I promise, I’m fine.”

Steve nodded, eyes clenched tight as he swallowed. Tony was here. He was underneath Steve’s fingers, alive, breathing, warm. It wasn’t real, and he knew that.

“I worry about you so much,” Steve admitted quietly, “all the time, Tony, I can’t- I thought you were going to die today, it’s not…. I don’t know how to handle that, I can’t- Oh God-“

“Don’t think about it, sweetheart,” Tony told him soothingly, rocking them both back and forth in a constant motion, “just don’t think about it. Not right now. I’m sorry that I scared you. I’m sorry I didn’t realize that was where you were coming from after, either. I’m a bit of an asshole, if you hadn’t noticed- tend to get a little self centred if I’m left to my own devices.” He laughed lightly and then cupped his hand around the back of Steve’s sweaty neck, his grip firm and grounding. “But I’m here now, alright? And I’m not leaving. I promise.”

Steve blinked and took a small, shaking breath, pulling back a little from Tony and looking down at his lap. “You don’t have to,” he began, “I can understand if you still want time to cool off.”

Rather than even bother answering, Tony just rolled his eyes and then pressed a delicate kiss into Steve’s cheek, rubbing their faces together lightly as he did so. Steve couldn’t help but gravitate back toward Tony’s touch, warm and real and there. “Don’t be stupid,” Tony told him softly, knocking his forehead against Steve’s, “I’m tired of being pissed-off. Now I just wanna be with you. That sound okay?” He leaned back and glanced at the bed, a pained look crossing his face when he saw the mess Steve had made of the bed.

“Sorry,” Steve muttered again, feeling his cheeks go red, “I’ll go fetch some new sheets in the morning-“

“I should have been here,” Tony interrupted as if he hadn’t even heard Steve at all, lips pursing into a thin line as he looked back to Steve with his guilty eyes and then brushed lightly across Steve’s cheek with his knuckles, “do you want to try sleeping again? Or do you want to go do something else?”

Steve bit his lip; the last thing he wanted to do in that moment was try and sleep again. He was terrified of what else he might see if he did. “Can we go down to your workshop?” He asked softly, “you can get back to whatever you were doing. I’ll just… draw, maybe.”

Tony nodded easily, his face breaking into a gentle smile. “Sure we can,” he agreed, hand dropping and falling into Steve’s own, “I have a few projects I need to get finished anyway. Come on, Rogers.”

Tony got back to his feet first, helping Steve to his and then holding tight to his hand as he guided them both out of the darkness of their room. Steve followed, legs still feeling horribly unsteady as he walked- but he concentrated on the steady beat of Tony’s pulse under his fingers instead, letting it rush over him like a lullaby. He made sure not to close his eyes for too long, in case the memories flooded into the backs of his eyelids. He was tired, definitely, but sleep could wait. He just needed… Tony.

And nothing was more Tony than the man’s workshop.

“I’m sorry I was so harsh,” Steve told him as they descended on the elevator, throat still feeling somewhat raw and uneven. Tony glanced up at him, his face twisting in confliction as he squeezed their hands together.

“And I’m sorry that I brought up what happened in Siberia,” Tony told him, and Steve made sure not to wince at the mention of the place alone, “it was totally unrelated and out of line. I was just running hot, and we were fighting, and-“

“It’s okay,” Steve began, but Tony waved him off quickly.

“No it isn’t,” he said, his face solemn, “I wouldn’t like it if you did it to me. And I know… I know that when you yell, it’s coming from a place of love.” He looked down and then shrugged, pulling a face. “Or at least I hope it is.”

Steve huffed tiredly, knocking their shoulders together, and he heard Tony’s responding chuckle in the quiet of their elevator. If there was one thing they truly were excellent at, it was fighting and then making up quickly afterward. Practise, mostly. “Of course it is, dummy,” he mumbled in response, “seeing you falling out of buildings with no immediate aerial support is-” _like watching Bucky fall all over again, it’s horrible, it’s like reliving a nightmare that I can’t ever get away from, no matter who or what or when-_ “not fun. I just need you to… _want_ _you_ , to try and make a conscious thought to plan ahead when you start off with those brazen ideas of yours, so that you have a little support with you in the aftermath of them. Otherwise… God, I don’t even want to think about what could happen.”

Steve could still feel that his hands were shaking, could still taste the imaginary blood at the back of his throat if he concentrated too hard, and just recalling the events of the last day, remembering what had happened- what _could have_ happened- dialled everything back up a notch or two, and it was only when Tony twisted around and then leaned into Steve’s front that he came back to reality once more. He looked down, his nose brushing Tony’s soft and freshly-washed curls as he did so. They smelled like apples from his shampoo. It was nice, and he took a long breath in.

There was no one who made Steve as vulnerable as Tony did. But he always knew what to do to make Steve better, too.

“It didn’t,” Tony reassured him gently, nudging his head upward and bumping it into Steve’s chin a little, “and I know that you must have been scared. I know I would have been too. I’ll do my best to call ahead in future if something like that happens. But you know the nature of our jobs, Steve. I can’t promise you that I’m going to be safe-“

“I know,” Steve said quickly, his hands wrapping around Tony’s back, holding him close, “and I know we have this conversation every time one of us gets hurt. It just…”

“It doesn’t ever get easier, huh?” Tony finished quietly, his expression heavy for a moment as he smiled tiredly up at Steve, who just pursed his lips and nodded.

“No,” he said softly, “it doesn’t.”

They both locked eyes with one another for a moment, before Tony simply sighed and then fell back into the cradle of Steve’s embrace, his breath ghosting along Steve’s exposed collar bones. Steve shut his eyes and sunk his chin into the mess of curls underneath him, holding Tony up like a shield against all the demons running through his head. Days like these put into perspective how… fragile, all of them were. How quickly all of it could end. It made Steve want to just pack his shit up and give all of it up- the job, the mantle of Captain America, everything. His mind went back to his thoughts from a while ago, about the quiet farm and the three kids and the peaceful nothingness that he’d envisioned while they’d lazed about on the couches. That would have been nice.

It wasn’t going to happen, and Steve had long since learned to accept that, but still. Sometimes, he really did just wish that there weren’t so many things out in the universe trying to kill them.

“Sir,” JARVIS spoke up quietly, and it was only then that Steve realised the elevator had actually stopped moving a while ago and was now sitting stationary at the basement floors, doors wide open and exposing the corridor which led to Tony’s workshop. Steve wondered how long they’d been stood there before the AI had decided to speak up. “You have arrived at the Workshop level.”

Tony blinked blearily and lifted himself away from Steve’s shoulder, turning around. “Ah,” he said with a nod, “right, yes, workshop. Come on, Steve- enough with the maudlin thoughts, hey? It’s Friday. We can’t be maudlin on a Friday. That’s against the rules.”

Steve rolled his eyes tiredly and followed Tony as the man stepped out of the elevator and started prancing through the corridor, eyes already lighting up at the prospect of getting back to whatever project he had been working on before JARVIS had interrupted with the alert about Steve. The doors slid open easily for the both of them, and Tony turned to Steve questioningly as he reached the desk. “What are your thoughts on some Black Sabbath?” He asked.

Steve wrinkled his nose, wandering back over to Tony’s side and then leaning over to the third draw down on the left, pulling up open and delving inside to retrieve his sketchbook. “How about Tchaikovsky?” He said, and then huffed when Tony blanched.

“Ugh, no, depressing,” he waved the idea off, before clicking his fingers, “hey, you know, it’s been a while since I pulled out the piano. You wanna watch me put Beethoven to shame for a little while?” Tony’s eyebrows wiggled and he leaned in closer, “I know you love it.”

Steve knew that the look on his face gave away his excitement at that prospect. It was a little known fact that Tony was actually a highly skilled musician as well as inventor, and the first time Steve had become aware of said fact (Monday morning on the 14th of November 2013, to be precise, because yes, that memory was permanently fixed into Steve’s mind), he was pretty sure that he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off Tony for the entire night while he’d played. Tony said it helped him concentrate and come up with new ideas, and had been proven right when, while midway through performing Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No.9, Tony had suddenly dropped the bow and then lurched over to his desk, completing the work that he’d been stressing over all night. At Steve’s count, Tony could play four instruments with ease: Violin, Piano, guitar and drums (usually only pulled out for stress relief or during the more manic nights), but in all honesty, Tony probably knew more. Just being the smartest person alive was not enough for that man- he had to be a brilliant musician, too.

Steve fucking loved that about him.

“I’d like that,” he agreed with a small smile, eyes flicking over to the corner of the room where the grand piano rested. Most assumed it was a decorative piece more than anything, despite the fact Tony kept one in every home he owned and the chair was worn with use- but Steve had the honour of knowing better, and as Tony turned on his heel and began to wander over to the beautiful instrument tucked away in the corner, Steve walked parallel to him until he found the couch pushed against the side of the wall. He rolled onto it smoothly, feet on one armrest and his chin perched in his hands on the other as he looked over to Tony a few feet away. The man shot him a small smile and then settled into the stool, fingers flexing experimentally against the keys.

He took a small, almost imperceptible breath in- and then he played.

When Steve had been small, he remembered going to watch a pianist perform with his ma. He remembered how awed he’d felt then, when he’d seen the way the man’s fingers had moved like liquid across each key, how he’d drifted into the music and become one with it. He’d thought that there couldn’t possibly be anyone better than that man as he’d come out of the theatre that day. But now even that memory, although layered with the childhood magic that surrounded those sorts of things, just seemed to pale in comparison to hearing Tony play. He could quite literally listen his lover run his fingers expertly across the keys for the rest of his life, and would do so very happily.

He watched in complete fascination as Tony shut his eyes and let the music roll over him, fingers working back and forth to the tune of Für Elise. The notes were soft and soothing, slightly slower than what it normally sounded like, turning it into more of a lullaby than anything else. Steve knew it was for his benefit- Tony had nothing pressing on his mind that needed working through, but he was aware of how much Steve adored hearing him play. He thought it would soothe Steve’s mind- and, of course, he was right. Steve smiled dimly to himself as he rested his cheek against the cushions, the niggling afterthoughts of his horrible night’s sleep slipping easily away as the melodic music filled the room, just as Tony had thought it probably would.

By the time Tony had come to the end of the piece, Steve was slumped bonelessly into the couch, watching Tony through his tired eyes and trying to tamp down on what he knew was probably a ridiculously large smile. Tony glanced over at him, his hands falling into his lap, and when he took in Steve’s relaxed position, his eyes twinkled. “Really does it for you, huh?” He said cheekily, trailing his fingers absently over the keys and playing a quick tune.

Steve nodded. “You’re brilliant,” he declared, “you’re just… brilliant.”

That, for some reason, took Tony back a little, and he blushed adorably as he looked away. “Well, I mean, it’s just-“

“Brilliant,” Steve finished for him firmly, sitting up a little and then tilting his head, “don’t even try and argue it, Stark.”

The chair scraped across the floor as Tony stood up once more, making his way over to the couch where Steve was lying. “Oh, I wouldn’t dare,” he responded with a fond roll of his eyes, “Steve Rogers’ word is law, after all.”

“Damn right it is,” he nodded solemnly and held out his hands, wrapping them around Tony’s slim waist as soon as he got near enough and tugging him into his lap, “best remember that.”

“Is this a gentler way of you telling me to listen to you in the field?” Tony asked, settling down into Steve’s hold and tucking his chin against the meat of Steve’s shoulder, “because honestly, I’m liking it better than the yelling.”

Steve rolled his eyes. Now that he’d managed to relax a little again, the lethargy was returning to him once more. The mission that day had been exhausting, and usually Steve slept for hours after them in order to pull his energy reserves back up to normal. The damn nightmare had messed with his routine though, and now the tiredness was hitting him in waves once more.

Again, though, Tony seemed to sense his thoughts, because he wordlessly reached for the faded blanket that they kept thrown haphazardly over the armrest and then pulled it off, spreading it out and throwing it across him and Steve. He carefully tucked the folds in around Steve’s body, making sure he was appropriately covered with warmth, before finally settling back down and letting his head drop forward and tuck itself just under Steve’s chin. “Want me to tell you about some of the new Iron Man schematics I’ve been working on recently?” he asked easily, his voice soft and quiet.

Steve curled into Tony’s body a little, eyelids drooping. “We can’t sleep here,” he responded with, because he recognised Tony’s angle, knew that Tony was cunningly aware of the fact he could put Steve to sleep with his combination of beautiful meaningless science-words mixed with some hair petting, “we’re too old for crashing on the couch.”

Tony snorted. “What did I tell you? I’m 23 forever and you’re a supersolider. We’ll be fine.”

“Tony-“ Steve began, but the other man had already settling his fingers into Steve’s hair, and dammit, it felt so good. Steve hummed happily and shut his eyes, head resting back against the couch cushions. He supposed he could accept defeat this once. Although Tony would undoubtedly moan about his sore neck in the morning, as he always did.

“So I’ve been toying with this new method of storing kinetic energy, a little bit like T’challa’s suit design, you know?” Tony began quietly, and Steve nodded in confirmation, his tired mind throwing up fuzzy images of the Iron Man suit in response to the words. “It’d be really useful when it comes to absorbing large impacts, because usually that just ends up reverberating all over my frail old man bones, which no one likes-”

That was the last thing Steve remembered hearing, drifting off once more to the sound of Tony’s rhythmic voice and the sensation of careful fingers working their way through his hair.

 

He didn’t have another nightmare that night.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

“Cap, what’s your status?”

 

Steve raised his eyebrows, slamming the side of his shield into a soldier’s face before opening the door that he’d been guarding. “Sorry Romanov, but I regret to inform you that I’m in a committed relationship.”

Over the comm, he heard her sigh. “You know, I’m sure it used to be _you_ telling us to keep it strictly business over the comm.”

“Sorry,” Steve grinned as he hoisted his shield back up onto his arm, “couldn’t help it.”

He, Natasha and Clint were currently infiltrating a large AIM underground base that was on SHIELD’s radar due to various nefarious reasons, main one being illegal scientific experimentation. Steve, at this point in his life, was woefully used to that phrase cropping up on a bi-weekly basis, and when the file had been handed to him, he’d merely sighed to himself. It wasn’t world-ending, but it was unfortunately high-priority enough to make him have to call up Tony and cancel their evening reservation.

Bastards.

Steve glanced at a clock on the wall as he crept into another section of the freshly abandoned corridor. He’d only been here for twenty minutes, but he had to admit, he was kind of bored. When you’d saved the universe a handful of times and the world a dozen more, taking down shitty AIM bases was just lame.

But he supposed duty called, or whatever.

“Hawkeye, do we have a pinpoint on the main testing facility?” He barked out quietly as he crept around the second corner and then spotted a gaggle of lanky scientists quietly try and vacate the premises through a not-so-hidden corridor. They’d be rounded up by SHIELD retrieval as soon as they reached the perimeter, so they were very much not Steve’s problem. What they had been working on, however, most certainly was.

“I’ve got a tecchie over in the computer room trying to find that out for you right about now,” was the response he got, “but he’s taking longer than one minute and I’m not used to that kind of dawdling. Tell me why we didn’t just bring Tony again?”

“Don’t be mean to the computer-man,” Steve said absently, “I’m sure he’s doing his best.” His best was just a little slower than Tony’s average, that was all. They were too used to being spoiled with talent. “Tony’s out at Stark Industries this weekend for business, did he not tell you?”

“Probably, but if it was at any point before midday then you know for sure that I will absolutely not have stored it in my memory,” Clint said, and there was a huff down the line as he undoubtedly took out another guard, “tell him to come back immediately. I don’t like this guy. He’s too jumpy.”

Steve rolled his eyes, peering into the lab that the group of scientists had just exited from. By the looks of it, it was entirely abandoned by that point, and so Steve didn’t bother much with stealth approach. “I don’t think I can just tell him to leave his billion-dollar company behind to come and speed up the job that we already have someone doing for us, Hawkeye.”

Clint just snorted. “Of course you can. Give him your Tony-Face, maybe promise him a blowie, and he’ll be right over-“

“Clint!” Steve admonished with a sigh, “I am not coercing Tony into joining us over here using sexual favours.”

“Oh, as if you haven’t done that at least once, _everyone_ does that at least once-“

“Can we please focus up on the task ahead of us, gentlemen?” Natasha asked tiredly, “we still need to find where the main laboratory is.”

Steve pulled a face and then smoothed a hand absently across the surface of a nearby counter. “Well, I think I’ve just put the Tecchie out of a job,” he said quietly, “’cause it looks like it’s right here.”

The room he’d walked into was bigger than the rest by at least twice the size, and was arranged in a circular formation, all of the equipment and counters centred around a large machine in the middle of the room. Steve eyed it with a cocked head and a small frown, trying to work out what it could be. Although he had to admit, this was probably more Tony or Bruce’s forte than his. To him, it really just looked like a big hunk of metal. There were wires, however, that were attached up at the top of the machine and then fed into various tubes at the sides of the room. Steve squinted and wandered closer. “Widow?” He asked quietly, fingers tapping his comm, “did the source tell you whether it was human experimentation they were working on?”

The tubes were stark white, but the harsh light threw up a faint shadow within them- one that seemed worryingly human-esque. Steve continued to move forward, checking for threats as he went along. The silhouettes weren’t moving much- seemingly hovering, but Steve couldn’t be sure.

“I wouldn’t put it past them,” Natasha responded darkly, “the guy didn’t specify though- why? What have you found?”

Steve pursed his lips and gripped his shield just that little bit tighter. “I’m not too sure yet,” he murmured, head turning back to the main machine in the centre of the room. That seemed like it might answer a few questions here. He moved cautiously forward, circling the instrument once and trying to see anything particularly telling. Of course, none of it really gave anything away, and there were no obvious power switches, so Steve was pretty much out of ideas. All he knew is that it was huge and connected to the weird tubes that were holding strangely familiar silhouettes. Steve really didn’t want to know what AIM had been working on. He just wanted to shut it down.

Curious fingers reached up and brushed lightly across the casing in front of him, which, in hindsight, was probably not the wisest decision. He hadn’t considered the fact that they may have implemented some defence protocols before abandoning it to Captain America and the SHIELD team, and so as soon as his skin touched down against the metal, he felt the reaction occur instantly. Agonising pain lanced up his body in a rapid-fire motion, his muscles spasming against their will as thousands of volts of electricity coursed through his body and sent him flying across the room. He felt the prickle up and down his skin as he flew through the air, the unfortunately familiar sensation of a dozen little needles stabbing into each section of skin, but a second or so later the pain drifted just out of his reach, and as his body slammed up against the wall on the other side of the room, he felt himself slip into a state of half-unconsciousness. The floor was cold where he fell, and his body jerked and twitched uselessly, small gasps choking their way up his throat. He knew if it had been any normal man, a current of that intensity would have killed them immediately.

Oh God, it hurt. His chest felt like there was someone pressing a hundred concrete slabs onto it, and there was something wrong in his ears. An incessant buzzing, but also a strange staccato rhythm that rang out as unfamiliar in his brain. Still only half aware, he realised it was his own heartbeat, pulsing erratically as the electricity shot its way through him and wreaked havoc upon his organs.

A second later, he stopped thinking completely as everything blanked out and left his mind thankfully empty of all thoughts and feelings. The next thing he recognised again when the world slowly shifted back into focus was the sound of Clint’s incessant voice drilling a painful thump into his brain, and he winced at the grating noise. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but if Clint had managed to find him, then it must have at least been a minute or two.

“Oh, s’alright Nat, he’s coming around,” the man said above him, and Steve moaned softly as he dragged his eyes open. The light burned into his retinas, and so he quickly rethought his decision and snapped them shut once more. The buzzing still rang out in his ears. “Jesus, Steve, how do you manage to propel yourself into the most dangerous objects you can find, huh?”

“Motherfuck,” Steve responded with bluntly, a hand reaching shakily to his head, “mother _fuck_.”

“What the Goddamn hell even happened?” Clint asked as he helped Steve back into a sitting position, “all we heard was a yell and then it was just static and we couldn’t contact you. We thought something had fucking exploded.”

“Yeah- just don’t touch the big machine in the middle of the room,” Steve gritted out sullenly, “it packs a punch.”

Clint looked behind him at the rather innocuous-looking chamber. Then he turned back to Steve, concern in his eyes. “You okay?” He asked, his two fingers slipping over Steve’s neck and checking his pulse. His eyes widened a little. “Whoah, that doesn’t sound normal.”

Yeah, it didn’t in Steve’s ears either- but he just shook his head and brushed it off. It was there, and that was all that really mattered. “I’m good,” he muttered, “but we need to work out what the chamber is doing. I think there are people in there.”

Clint nodded, but when Steve made to stand, he pressed his hand against Steve’s chest and held him in place. Steve, already immeasurably weakened by the shock, couldn’t even fight it. “Nope,” he declared, “you stay right there. We’ve got evac coming in for you.”

“I’m-“ Steve began, before he felt something spasm deep inside his chest. With a gasp, he slammed a hand over his sternum and hissed. A second later, however, it passed, and he slumped back against the wall with a sigh. “Okay,” he breathed, “maybe I’m not fine.”

Clint huffed and clapped him on the back. “The med-team should be here in half a minute. Just sit tight- Widow’ll be here imminently too, and we can see whether we can work out how to turn off the defences of this bad boy.” He shot Steve a wry look. “Told you we should have brought Tony.”

Steve sucked in a shallow breath, eyes widening. “Oh Jesus, I’m glad we didn’t. Don’t think he would’a approved of me puttin’ my hands all over some foreign death machine. ‘Least he didn’t see it for himself.”

When Clint looked a little sheepish, Steve looked at him blankly. “You put him through on the comm, didn’t you,” he said with pursed lips.

“We thought he might be needed to save your life, and you know, he likes to know whether you’re alive and stuff!” Clint said defensively, hands going up, “and he’s very convincing when he’s all business-mode. He’s calling you an idiot down the line, by the way. Says he’s gonna kick your ass when he gets here.”

Steve sighed. “Love you too, sweetheart,” he muttered, before palming a hand over his forehead and leaning back against the wall just as the evac team all jogged through the doors. It was going to be a long few hours.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

Luckily, he was fine.

“No lasting damage,” they said to him as they finished checking him over, and Steve heard Tony breathe out a quiet sigh of relief next to him. The doctor looked at his notes with a small shake of his head. “Incredible, really,” he muttered to himself, “that really should have killed you, Captain.”

Steve just shrugged, swinging his legs off the table. “Lotta things should have killed me,” he declared, looking down at his chest and the Tony-shaped hand that was currently pressing into it.

“Should he stay for more monitoring?” Tony asked, shooting Steve a stony glare and pushing him back a little.

But the doctor shook his head. Hah. “There’s really not much point. Captain Rogers’ system wouldn’t accept any drugs we could offer, and his heart appears to be functioning normally. I suggest you just take it easy for a few days, keep watch and see if there are any changes.”

Steve smiled smugly at Tony and then hopped off the table. “Thank you, Doc,” he said with a nod, gently taking the hand away from his chest and then clasping it into his own as he began to pull Tony out of the room with him.

The Doctor bid them farewell, and as soon as they were out of the hospital Steve felt the smack of a soft fist against the meat of his arm. He looked left and saw Tony’s unimpressed face. “What did I tell you about touching foreign science stuff found in creepy basements?” He hissed, smacking Steve in the shoulder again, “don’t fucking do it! Don’t do it!”

Steve looked sheepish. “Hey, you’re one to talk,” he said weakly, “and I’m okay!”

“Yeah, I touch because I know what it is!” Tony snapped, “I have mechanisms in my suit that insulate me from currents and laser beams and death rays. You’re all… fleshy and exposed, Jeeze, Steve-“

He turned to face the other man and clasped gently at his shoulders. Tony looked back up at him- still in his business suit, now crumpled and messed from the amount of time he’d spent in it waiting around with Steve at the SHIELD medical unit. There was a strain in his eyes.

“I’m okay,” he said again, firmer this time as he squeezed down against Tony’s shoulders, “just any old injury. Happens a lot.”

Tony just huffed, slipping his palm up against Steve’s chest. “Electricity is a real bastard though,” he mumbled, “gotta be careful, Steve.”

Steve just smiled at him fondly and then leaned forward, kissing the gray strands at his temples. He calmly ignored the strange tightness that suddenly pulled on his chest, just for a second before fading away again. It had been happening intermittently ever since he’d woken back up, but Steve figured it would probably stop soon, and he didn’t want to make anyone (Tony) worry anymore. “Next time I’ll try keep my hands to myself,” he said, “that alright with you, Mr. Stark?”

Tony just rolled his eyes. “Guess it’ll do. Usually this would be the time when I make you apologise to Pepper for dragging me out of all her meetings, but seeing as she can induce cardiac arrest upon healthy people, I would rather not expose you to her.” He pulled his phone from his back pocket and then wearily shucked his contacts up onto the screen, finding Pepper almost immediately and lifting it apprehensively to his ear.

Steve knocked their shoulders together. “Wow- you must really love me then,” he said with a laugh.

Tony glanced at him before sticking up his middle finger. “Yeah,” he agreed, “God help me, I do.”

Steve just preened warmly and then proceeded to look apologetic all the way through the ride home as Tony attempted to explain to Pepper why he’d seemingly just decided to bolt out of the meeting room with not so much as a goodbye and leave her to make his excuses for him. By the time they’d gotten to the tower, it seemed that he’d managed to placate her with promises of paperwork being filled out in record time and lots of rescheduled meetings, and Steve kept his face appropriately bashful as Tony ended the call and glared at him. “You hear that?” He said, “that’s work that I have to do now. Because of you. Asshole.”

Steve stepped into the elevator and turned to Tony, rubbing at his chest. “Well, I mean… you didn’t _have_ to come,” he tried, but Tony just rolled his eyes and then pulled the most incredulous face he could muster as barged into the elevator next to him.

“That’s the worst excuse I’ve ever heard and because of that we are not having sex tonight.”

“Awww, come on, don’t do that!”

“Then don’t say dumb things!” Tony told him, trying to hold back a smile as Steve pouted at him and gave what Clint had called his ‘Tony Face’.

It took Tony three seconds to cave. “Oh my God, _fine_ , fine, but you’re totally doing all the work,” he groused, folding his arms and then finally letting himself smile as Steve wrapped his arms around Tony’s waist and pulled him in close for a kiss. They made out easily against the chrome walls of the elevator and Tony may possibly have asked JARVIS to slow down the ascent up to the top floors so that he and Steve could engage in some heavy petting, which proved just how effective that so-called ‘Tony Face’ actually was, really. By the time they exited into the common area a few minutes later, they were both a little more dishevelled than they had been by the time their friends had seen them last. Luckily, Clint was thoroughly engrossed in whatever children’s comic he’d picked up to read and Natasha simply let them off with a raised eyebrow and a small glance over to the elevator.

“I really do have to go do a bit of work before I come to bed,” Tony told him with a pulled face, “I kind of left in a rush.”

Steve just shrugged, squeezing their hands together. “Yeah, no worries,” he said, “I’ll probably go take a bath or something.”

Tony sighed dramatically and leaned forward, pulling Steve down for a kiss. “Then I better get my work done quick so I can join you, huh?” He mumbled against Steve’s mouth before pulling away and skipping off in the direction of the staircase. “Don’t touch anything potentially lethal!” He called out behind him with a wave of his hand, and Steve rolled his eyes fondly as he yelled back his promise and then watched Tony’s mess of curls slowly disappear down the staircase.

Unfortunately, however, Tony didn’t end up managing to make it up before Steve had finished his bath, despite spending a quarter of an hour longer in there than he ever usually did. By the time the water was lukewarm, Steve had accepted defeat and slipped out to grab the towel. He figured Tony probably did have a lot of work to catch up on, considering he’d cut half his day short to go and fret over Steve at Medical.

He towelled himself off and then wrapped the fabric around his waist, grabbing his toothbrush from the sink and running it under the faucet. His reflection stared at him as he brushed his teeth, and he couldn’t help but curiously run his fingers over the faint lightning-strike pattern that had raised itself up onto his skin, running from his wrist all the way up to his shoulder. The Doctor called them Lichtenberg Figures, and they were usually found on folk who got struck by lightning. Steve figured they’d probably go down soon as his body healed, but until then, he had to admit that they were pretty cool to look at.

Steve smiled faintly to himself and leaned down to spit, popping the brush back into its little container. As he straightened his back up again, he felt something tighten painfully once more in his chest and winced, hand covering his heart as the other went to the sink to steady him. He figured that it was taking his body a little while to work its way back to normal, and so until it did his heart was just having a spasm or two every now and then. Not overly serious; probably just a valve that had been tightened by the electrical pulse, but nothing that wouldn’t be fixed over the next forty eight hours or so while the serum worked its magic. If it hadn’t gone in a few days or so, he’d let someone know. But until then, he wasn’t going to worry too much.

Sparing one last look at the fancy patterns that had worked their way up to the surface of his skin, he padded out of the bathroom and then pulled on his pyjamas before falling into bed, one arm thrown out over Tony’s empty side as he drifted almost immediately into a light doze. By the time Tony eventually came up, Steve wasn’t entirely sure how long it had been, but he was sure he’d been asleep for a while.

He drifted just above unconsciousness lazily for a few minutes while Tony padded around the room, brushing his own teeth and then getting into his pyjamas. When Steve felt the weight of Tony’s body shuffle onto the bed, he rolled to the side and then stretched out his hands. Tony laughed quietly, tiredly, and fell into them.

“Sorry I missed bath time,” he whispered, curling up into Steve’s chest.

“Sorry I worried you with the whole electrocution thing,” Steve responded with a faint smile.

Tony chuckled. “Even?” He asked.

Steve, at that point, was already pretty much asleep once more, but he made sure to huff in affirmation and squeeze Tony’s waist softly. “Even,” he repeated gently.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

In hindsight, Steve probably should have told Medical about the weird heart palpitations. Or at least Tony. But at the time, it’d just seemed silly- he’d known that it would eventually recover after a day or two, and he’d sensibly assumed that until then he really wouldn’t have to worry about putting his body through anything overly strenuous.  Honestly, what were the chances of getting shocked twice in forty-eight hours?

Of course- he’d been forgetting to factor in his day job, and the general life of mayhem and Mad Science that he led. Probably unwise.

When Steve woke up the next morning, however, he didn’t think about that. He got up and went normally through his routine, brushing his teeth and flatting his hair down, not feeling anything strange happening under his ribs. In fact, the whole event slipped from his mind, and he left the bathroom with a little skip in his step as he looked back to the bed where Tony was still curled up and sleeping. When Tony had days off Stark Industries work, he tended to lie in until at least ten, as opposed to Steve’s rigid body-clock forcing him up at 7 on the dot.

He glanced at the clock on the bedside table as he quietly padded back on to his side of the bed. 8:22. Not the earliest that Steve could be waking his partner up, really. And he was sure Tony wouldn’t complain when he discovered Steve’s reasoning.

With a fond smile he gently snaked his arm around Tony’s waist, rolling him over onto his back. Tony frowned at the jostling. “Mmmf.”

“Mornin’,” Steve mumbled as he dipped his head low and then pressed his mouth against Tony’s neck, beginning to press little kisses into the soft skin there. He felt Tony stir underneath him, his hands moving as they reached for Steve’s broad shoulders.

“Hello, soldier,” Tony responded, his voice croaky from sleep. Steve glanced up at him with a grin, watching Tony rub his eyes and then blink blearily back down at him. “You having fun down there?”

In response, Steve bit gently at his collar-bone. “Time of my life,” he said with a nod, before looking back down and continuing to map Tony’s skin with his lips, getting lower and lower with each open kiss. Tony just laughed, the sound quickly teetering off into a little hum of pleasure as Steve slid his big hands under the small of Tony’s back, lifting his hips up and then pushing their bodies closer together.

They fucked lazily as the sun drew higher up into the sky, and then accidentally went again for round two after they’d both dragged themselves into the shower to clean up. By the time they finally pulled away from one another and stepped out of the shower, it was about 9:15, but Tony already looked as if he’d had a good day. His shoulders were loose, his smile easy. Steve couldn’t help but pull him in for another damp kiss, and Tony’s little laugh, muffled by Steve’s lips, was like music to his ears. He wanted Tony to be this happy every morning.

“I have to work,” Tony said, even as his hands slid around Steve’s neck and pulled him in closer, “seriously, important and life-changing things are happening down in my lab.”

“Mmm hmm,” Steve nodded sagely and continued to kiss him, “go do ‘em then.”

Tony huffed, making absolutely no move to go and do so, instead pushing forward and licking into Steve’s mouth hungrily as his hands slid down Steve’s glistening abs and then tugged at the towel around his waist.

And then came round three.

Unfortunately, however, Tony really _did_ have work, and so eventually they both had to refrain from copping feels in the bathroom and actually get dressed, which sucked. Steve only had a couple of meetings to attend in the evening, however, and although he’d been going to spend the day at SHIELD monitoring some of the recruits and giving them what everyone (Clint & Nat) now liked to call his famous ‘Captain’s Speech’, he also wanted to spend some time in Tony’s workshop, looking at what the man was currently building. His work was honestly fascinating to Steve, he didn’t think he’d ever get enough of it- and seeing Tony in his element like that wasn’t too bad either.

So, once he’d gotten some of the chores for the day done, he grabbed his sketchbook and a couple of pencils, and then made his way down to Tony’s lab. The doors slid open for him fluidly, and it took a moment or two for him to locate the other man in the mess that was his workshop. Eventually however, he spotted two sneakers poking out from underneath a huge device that was emanating a low humming frequency into the room, and Steve cocked his head at it curiously as he took it in. This was obviously Tony’s big project, then.

“It’s a transmitter,” Tony spoke up loudly into the room, and Steve jumped. He hadn’t known that Tony had even heard him come in. “For transmitting and storing really really big bits of data and information. We’re talking, theoretically speaking, the entire internet- you know, in case of an alien invasion in which they manage to cut off that sort of thing to prevent communication. Hopefully, if I can work out some of the kinks, it’ll also be able to effectively transmit messages through space at rapid speed. Figure it might come in useful if we have to start taking some of our fights up out of the atmosphere, you know?”

Steve looked up at it in awe, internally praising Tony’s mind. Always thinking ahead, always coming up with innovations that left everyone else reeling. “Certainly looks impressive,” he said with a huff of air.

But Tony simply snorted, pushing out from underneath the base of the machine and staring at Steve with his grease-stained face. “It absolutely does not,” he said derisively, “it looks like a bucket of bolts I threw together half asleep, which, okay maybe I did- but that’s not the point. I’m totally going to slicken this baby up soon. This is just a prototype, and right now it’s leaking all sorts of stuff. Gamma, x-rays, electricity. Don’t touch those poles by the way-” Tony gestured to the large staffs that were surrounding the entirety of the chamber, and Steve eyes them up warily, “they’re running live to stabilize the machine. I’d really rather you didn’t electrocute yourself for a second time.”

Steve hummed, realising that must be where the incessant low-frequency humming was coming from. Tony pulled himself back under the belly of the contraption a few seconds later until only his ankles remained visible, and Steve took another second to stare up at the first draft Tony had seemingly knocked up in nothing more than a few days, before simply shaking his head and then veering off to the left where the couch was pressed against the wall. He got comfortable amongst the worn out leather and old blankets, and he and Tony struck up relaxed conversation as the both of them worked. It was simple and easy, interspersed with comfortable silences and occasional snack-breaks. Steve had been trying to teach DUM-E how to make a sandwich for about five months now.

“You know he’s never going to get it right, right?” Tony asked, turning around from where he was crouched and watching Steve try and cheer DUM-E on as he cut into the bread. “His code just doesn’t allow for anything other than failure.”

Steve frowned and placed his hand protectively against the bot’s claw where he imagined the little guy’s ears might have been. “I think he can do whatever he puts his mind to, right bud?” He asked cheerily, and then laughed as the robot gave a few beeps of happiness. It seemed he was so happy, in fact, that he forgot what his original task was, and instead of picking up the knife he merely placed his entire claw into the centre of the sandwich, essentially mushing it into a heap. Steve looked down at it whilst Tony just cackled. “Okay. Well maybe we can just play some fetch for now, huh?”

DUM-E beeped his confirmation, rolling off to go and retrieve his special Dummyball immediately (Tony had coined that particular name). It was made of a thin flexible metal that was easier for the bot’s claws to grip to, and he had taken to dropping it at the feet of anyone who passed through the workshop in an attempt to get them to play. Tony said Steve had corrupted his worker robot and turned him into a dog, but Steve was pretty sure those attributes had been coded in by Tony himself.

DUM-E rolled back over to him and dropped the ball on the coffee table with a metallic clink. Steve grinned as he picked it up. “You should install Heelys on this guy,” he commented as he threw the ball gently.

Tony paused his work, turning to look at Steve with a dead expression on his face. “Never say those words to me again.”

“What? Imagine how much he’d love it.”

“He would heely his way straight into my work and ruin it, Steve, you know he would.” Tony shot the Bot a fond look and then rolled his eyes, turning back around to face his work. He was crouched low, ass stuck out, and Steve found himself cocking his head and watching appreciatively as the man screwed something into place. “You are far too attached to that thing.”

Steve just shrugged and pulled his eyes back to DUM-E as he trundled backward, ball clutched in his claw. He opened his mouth to say something, but stopped when his brain picked up on something: DUM-E was rolling over to Tony. He was rolling over to Tony and was coming in at an angle that had him heading dangerously close to one of those live poles. Steve worked it out quickly in his head, analysing the trajectory and direction it would fall if DUM-E hit at a certain angle. He glanced at Tony, sat tangled up in a bunch of wires, back turned, unable to see.

Uh oh.

He got to his feet quickly. “DUM-E,” he called out urgently, “DUM-E, come here boy, Tony’s working, he doesn’t- Tony, watch out, he’s heading for the-”

Too late. Tony turned around and looked at Steve enquiringly just as DUM-E clipped the edge of the long, dangerously humming pole. Steve’s eyes widened. “Move,” he said instantly, lurching forward as he watched the pole start to waver, “Tony, get out of the way!”

But it was already going, losing its centre of balance and toppling. It was headed right in Tony’s direction, and even if the man moved right now there would be a chance it’d hit him. Steve didn’t know how many volts were running through it, but he figured it would be enough to do damage. Potentially a lot of it. Which, obviously, Steve was not going to let happen.

So, without even thinking about it, he leaped forward and extended his arm, pushing it out of the way before it could land anywhere near Tony.

The reaction was instant.

He’d known getting electrocuted hurt. He’d experienced it a few days ago, after all. But the pain that lanced its way through his body the moment that he made contact with the metal was like something he’d never even felt before. Like icy fire surging through his bones, ripping straight through his frame. The tightness that he’d been feeling in his heart suddenly became less of a squeeze and more like a crushing sensation, clenching down on his heart like an inescapable vice. He felt himself get flung back as every single muscle convulsed, and the air rushed over his body like an afterthought to everything going on. He vaguely felt himself hitting the floor a second or so later, the sensation secondary to the burning agony in his body. Something was crushing on his chest and the world was darkening, and he couldn’t breathe-

The last thing he was aware of before he lost consciousness was the sound of Tony screaming his name.

 

 

 

 

**____Tony_____**

 

 

 

 

He’d never thought of Steve as invincible.

He knew that other people did. That they idolised him for it; Captain America, the man that not even time could take. And to some extent, they had a point. It seemed whatever Steve did, he bounced back from it with practised ease, walked it off, got back to his feet again with a nod and a tight smile. Reporters would ask him about the injuries he’d sustained, and he’d just shrug and tell them it was simply all part of the job. Everyone admired him for that. Tony heard people say there was Vibranium in his bones, that project rebirth had made him immortal as opposed to enhanced.

But Tony knew better.

Tony saw him in the days after, when he was laid up in bed with a pained expression, breath coming in shallow as he tried to breathe through four broken ribs. Tony saw him bleed the same as any other soldier, red and deep and deadly. He’d put his fingers over stab-wounds to stop the otherwise fatal flow, sat by his side as Steve hovered on the line between life and death. And yeah, Steve healed faster, was harder to hurt. But that by no means meant that he didn’t. He put himself in more danger than anyone on planet Earth, constantly jumping in front of bullets to stop others getting hurt, signing himself up for painful missions that would push him to the edge, simply because he was the only one who _could_. It drove Tony mad, watching how Steve treated himself. Like just because his body could heal meant that it wasn’t important to try and protect. It seemed SHIELD and everyone else thought that too- to them, he was just an asset. A soldier to do their dirty work. Before Tony had come onto the scene, they were sending Steve into some quite frankly shocking situations, and worse, Steve had gone willingly, because he thought that it was his duty. That the human rights laws and Geneva fucking Conventions just didn’t apply to him because he was enhanced. It made Tony’s skin crawl.

He knew that this was their job. He knew damn well that this was just a part of their lives that he had to cope with, because there was no way Steve would stop any time soon, and if he was being honest, no way that Tony would either. That didn’t make any of it any less agonising. Seeing Steve hurting, watching him choke up blood or wrap up a wound was never going to be easy. Tony wished there was a way for them to do what they did without getting hurt, and he tried his damndest to keep the injuries to a minimum with suit upgrades and in-built defences. It wasn’t ever going to be foolproof, though. And that was just something he had to live with.

Steve always said how much he loved Tony’s heartbeat. Tony could tell that it was one of Steve’s grounding points, that he listened to it to remind himself where he was and what he still had. Sometimes he just held Tony’s hand while they sat together, fingers brushing over the pulse on his wrist, and then it’d stay there for the entire time, just settled, listening to the constant thrum. It made Steve blush when Tony brought it up, as if it were a silly thing to do, but Tony understood. Of course he did. He loved the sound of Steve’s heart as much as Steve loved the sound of his. The proof that he was there, that he was alive, that there was still hope. Sometimes when Tony couldn’t sleep, his mind too full of the what-ifs, the ideas, the fears and anxieties, he’d settle his hand over Steve’s chest and just listen. Let the thoughts fall away and leave only the sound of Steve to surround him. He’d count the beats all the way up into the hundreds some nights.

Tony loved Steve’s heart more than anything.

 

And now he scrambling to his feet at lightning speed, sprinting over to Steve’s unresponsive body as it lay on the floor and feeling desperately for a pulse that was no longer there.

 

It’d happened too fast Tony hadn’t even had to time to register what was going on until Steve was already flying across the room. DUM-E had knocked over one of the poles, and Steve had caught it before it could land on Tony. In the process, he’d been shocked with enough current to kill a man twice over. Tony knew. He’d done the math while he’d been scrambling over, crying Steve’s name in terror. His knees hit the floor next to Steve’s body and his hands went to the man’s face, clutching at him. “Steve?” he shouted, “Steve, can you hear me? _Fuck_ \- JARVIS, call an ambulance right now!”

Steve’s eyes were shut, body limp. Tony’s hand went to his neck, feeling shakily for a pulse while he leaned down and hovered his cheek over Steve’s mouth. “Come on,” he whispered frantically, mind reeling from the whiplash of emotion- seconds ago, everything had been _fine_ and _okay_ and Steve had been sat on the couch sketching and now- now Tony couldn’t feel him breathe. His heart wasn’t beating.

Cardiac arrest.

“Oh God,” Tony’s mouth dropped open in horror, head jerking up. “JARVIS! Where’s the defib?”

“There is currently a defibrillator on the lobby floor of the tower-“

“-WHY THE FUCK IS THERE NOT A DEFIB ON IN THE PERSONAL QUARTERS?” Tony screamed frantically, cursing himself for his own fucking idiocy, _Jesus Christ,_ he’d thought of every safety measure known to man except for a fucking defibrillator, of fucking course. He felt himself begin to hyperventilate as he looked down at Steve’s unresponsive body, just lying there on the floor of his workshop. This was not how Steve was going to die. Not because of Tony.

He looked down at his chest, and made a choice.

Scrabbling to his feet, he sprinted over to his desk and yanked out a drawer, finding a set of wires that he could use before running back and lifting his shirt over his head hastily. “Hold on Steve,” he whispered, thinking about oxygen deprivation and brain damage and everything that could happen in the amount of time that it would take to get Steve’s heart working again. “Just hold on for me, I’ve got you.”

He plugged the wire in and then, taking a deep breath, twisted and yanked at the metal in his chest . The reactor came loose with an ominous hiss, and he gasped as his own heart began to fluctuate wildly, feeling the terribly familiar sensation of tightness on his chest that came removal of the pacemaker in his chest. Without the arc reactor inside to regulate the electrical impulses of his heart, it was starting to spasm and do things that no healthy heart should be allowed to do. It wouldn’t be long before he went into cardiac arrest as well, so he had to work fast to get Steve’s beating before he passed out himself. It was a race against the clock now.

He clenched his jaw and then unbuttoned Steve’s shirt, exposing his chest as he pressed the frame of the reactor against his skin. Feeling sweat begin to form on his face from the stress, he pressed his thumb into the back of the casing, setting off an electric impulse in the reactor. There was a flash of light and Steve’s body jolted unnaturally, Tony himself being thrown backward by the force. He rolled back up quickly though and then pressed his heart against Steve’s neck. Still nothing.

 _“Come on,”_ he hissed desperately, reactor going back to Steve’s chest, “come on sweetheart, you’re not fucking dying on me today.”

Another pulse. Another flash. Tony was flat on his back again, but scrambling upright once more. God, his chest was aching. He couldn’t breathe. He had to keep going. Underneath him, Steve still wasn’t responding. _Tony had to make him respond._

He curled his spare hand around Steve’s neck, biting on his lip hard enough that it drew blood. Hot, panicked tears were starting to crawl up into his eyes. “Please,” he whispered, vision going blurry and darkening around the edges, “please, wake up, come on, for me Steve.”

Shutting his eyes, he pressed down on the back of the reactor, feeling the jolt of Steve’s body as the electricity ran through him. His chest was fast gong from aching to unbearable, and he knew he wasn’t going to remain conscious for much longer. JARVIS would have signalled one of the team by that point, and they’d be coming down here as fast as they could. Maybe they’d be able to help Steve once he became useless.

Or maybe they wouldn’t have to. Because with a choking sound and a jerk, Steve’s body finally moved of its own accord, chest heaving as he _breathed_.

Tony sagged in complete, overwhelming relief, watching with a heavy exhale as Steve’s eyes blinked open blearily, a deep frown forming on his face. Exhaustion clutched at Tony’s battered body, suddenly feeling a wave of light-headedness as he crumbled where he sat, falling clumsily onto Steve’s stomach. His heart hurt. But Steve was okay. Steve was breathing. People were coming. He wasn’t dead.

“Tony?” Steve said in confusion, voice hoarse, “Tony, what’s… are you okay? What’s- what’s wrong, are you- oh God, your reactor, where’s your reactor, Tony-“

He couldn’t respond. His mouth wouldn’t work, his whole body was frozen up. He wanted to tell Steve to put it back in, put his heart back into his body, but he couldn’t make the words come out. Instead, he just twitched his fingers, the ones that were curled around the reactor. His eyes rolled shut and the world around him started to go dim as unconsciousness took hold, the only thing he was able to feel was Steve’s weak hands clutching his shoulders in panic and confusion. _Sorry_ , he wanted to say, but like every other word that had tried to force its way up through his non-responsive throat, the sound never made it past his teeth.

With a final look up at Steve and his beautifully living, breathing face, Tony slipped quietly out of consciousness against the other man’s stomach.

 

 

 

 

-Only to be jolted awake again a second later with an uncomfortable slam against his chest, gasping for glorious oxygen as his heart suddenly kicked into gear. With a wild panic, his hand flew up to his chest to check for empty space, but instead his fingers met with someone else’s. Following the hands to wrist to arm to shoulder, he eventually came back to Steve’s face, pale and shaken and staring at Tony in a mixture of panic and relief. He must have put it back in.

Tony gulped down lungfuls of air, feeling the dizziness and pain begin to ebb away. His whole body was shaking. “Are you okay?” He managed to choke out, however, looking over at Steve worriedly. He slumped back down onto the floor in complete exhaustion, panting heavily.

Steve’s eyes bulged. “Am I okay?” He hissed, “Tony, you just… why the hell did you do that to yourself? Are you crazy?” His voice was wheezy and he tried to sit up indignantly but didn’t quite manage to find the strength, and a second later he too crumbled back to the floor with a grunt.

They turned to each other, both of them pale and sweaty and feeling pain in pretty much every orifice of their bodies. Tony laid the flat of his palm over Steve’s chest, feeling the too-fast, too-quiet beat of his heart. He shut his eyes in relief. A second later, Steve’s hand came and laid shakily down upon his own.

“Well,” Steve said as he turned his head and looked up at the ceiling, “that was a fucking mess.”

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

They both ended up at the hospital.

Tony complained at the nurses the entire time- he’d done this rodeo before, taking out his arc reactor Slash pacemaker had never caused any lasting damage from what he knew, and he was perfectly fine to function afterward. They questioned the pace of it, told him it was too fast to be normal, and Tony snappily informed them it was probably because his boyfriend’s own heart had just stopped less than an hour ago, so sue him for being a little fucking anxious. He didn’t mention that he really was feeling exhausted, like he’d spent a whole day doing weight training until every muscle ached. They’d only keep him in longer, and every moment spent getting checked on himself meant a moment he was away from Steve. And at that moment, he really didn’t want to be away from Steve.

He couldn’t stop imagining the way Steve had just been so… lifeless, underneath him. There hadn’t been any blood, any twitching. Steve hadn’t even cried out. His heart had just stopped, and his body had stopped with it. It had been like looking at a corpse.

Tony very much did not want to think about that, however, so he shoved it into the dark corners of his mind and then focused on simply batting away the nurses and demanding that they let him go. Apart from the elevated heart-rate, he was physically fine, and so after a few minutes they rescinded, and he was out like a shot, hurrying over to Steve’s room with anxious, flighty eyes. He looked for doctors hurrying, looked for worried glances his way. Those were usually the signs that there was something wrong.

 _Stop it,_ he told himself as he rounded another corner, _Steve’s fine. His heart only stopped for a little bit. That’s fine. People’s hearts stop, big deal, it’s not like you could have lost him forever as his brain slowly became starved of oxygen on the floor of your fucking workshop-_

He blinked. Fine fine fine fine fine.

When he came to Steve’s door a minute or so later, he didn’t bother to knock, instead simply bursting through the doors and laying his eyes first on Steve’s conscious form, and then quickly over to the heart-monitor at the corner of the room. He watched it for a second, looking at each one of the steady beats. Steve was okay.

“Tony?” He jolted and turned, looking at the man in question with an attempt at a smile.

“Hey, sweet-cheeks,” he responded, “how’s the old ticker doing?”

Steve laughed tiredly and leaned back against his pillows. “Feels like I’ve been hit with a train. Twice.”

Tony edged forward, coming to a stop at the chair next to Steve’s left side and then sitting down slowly in it. The doctors had said Steve had suffered third degree burns to his right hand and arm, and it would take a while for it to heal. As for his heart- he was going to need at least a week of rest for the serum to fully do its work, maybe more. Steve had taken two major doses of electricity in the space of a few days, and the first lot had managed to fuck with his heart enough that upon the second shock, it hadn’t properly healed and so stopped working altogether.

God. Usually Tony had to worry about the state of his _own_ heart, not Steve’s.

“I told you not to get electrocuted again,” Tony said weakly in an attempt at lightheartedness, but it came out a little more strained than he intended, “you goddamn asshole, why don’t you ever listen to me?”

Steve smiled reassuringly, opening up his good hand and then finding Tony’s own, squeezing tight. “Sorry,” he whispered, “but I wasn’t gonna let it hit you, Tony. Anyway- _I_ told _you_ to never try and use your reactor for anything other than its designated use in your chest. You didn’t listen to me either.” His gaze flicked down with a small frown, hovering over the light in Tony’s chest. He swallowed. “It looked horrible,” he admitted, “so empty. Where your heart was supposed to be, where the light… it was just black.”

Tony sighed, and then a second later did what he always ended up doing when Steve was in a hospital bed: joined him. Shuffling onto the cot, he quickly tucked himself into Steve’s side and then guided Steve’s palm over to the cool, flat surface of his reactor. Then, he placed his own down upon Steve’s chest, right between his pecs. They were both quiet for a few seconds; Tony listening to each individual heart-beat, and Steve to the low hum of noise that the arc reactor was constantly giving out.

“We’re okay,” Tony said with a nod, “I’m fine, you’re fine, we’re both… idiots, but we’re fine.”

Steve nodded and shut his eyes. Tony knew he must be in pain- electric shocks always seemed to be worse in the aftermath than they were at the present moment. But despite what he must have been feeling, he didn’t let it show. “I’m sorry I scared you,” he murmured, “but it had been heading straight for you. And you wouldn’t have been able to bounce back as quickly as I can.”

“You’re not fucking invincible, Steve,” Tony told him, fingers flexing against Steve’s heart worriedly, “you always- you always talk about yourself like you’re just this… this piece of meat that can take as many beatings as you throw at it, but you’re _not_ , Steve. You’re breakable too.”

“But it takes more, okay, and we both know that I can heal faster-“

“-You didn’t see yourself lying on the floor of my workshop,” he snapped, “two more minutes of heart failure and you would have suffered permanent brain damage. If I hadn’t hit you with the reactor, you would have _died_. There’s no bouncing back from a stopped heart.”

Steve didn’t say anything to that, and Tony just clenched his jaw and looked down at his hand, sat protectively over the thrum of Steve’s heart. That hadn’t been there, last time Tony had felt it. It had been gone, missing, close to never coming back again.

He knew their lives were fragile, hanging on a razor’s edge. Didn’t mean he liked to be reminded of it, though.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said again, tilting Tony’s head back upward gently with his two fingers. His eyes were tired, but full of life. It was enough. “I know it must have hurt you to watch that.”

Tony just choked a little wetly. “Yeah,” he muttered, “you could fucking say that.” He buried his head into Steve’s chest and then shut his eyes, letting the tiredness rush back over him now that he at least had Steve in his arms, his warm body proving to Tony what his rational mind already knew. He shifted his hand and tangled his fingers into Steve’s own, holding on tight and feeling Steve do the same. They’d spent more time in hospitals like these than Tony could possibly keep track of by that point in his life, sometimes for weeks and weeks on end. The injuries weren’t ever going to get easier to deal with- big or small. He hated watching Steve cut his thumb on the mail, nevermind seeing his whole damned heart stop. It was dangerous, with the lives they lived, to get attached to anyone, really. Tony had seen too many people die in the blink of an eye; whole lives just disappearing at the firing of a gun or a mistake on the field. It was a damning thought.

But Tony had always lived dangerously. And there was no way in hell that he could ever, ever stop loving Steve now.

He quietly started up a count of Steve’s heartbeat as he shut his eyes and rested, fingers subconsciously tapping in time to the beat. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight-

-621, 622, 623, 624-

“Tony,” Steve mumbled- and by that point, the light had disappeared from the room and the world was in darkness, evening falling like a blanket over the hospital where Steve was being kept for observation, “Tony, sweetheart, go to sleep.”

629, 630, 631. “I don’t want to,” Tony whispered, fear seeping into his voice.

Steve sighed, the succession of beats speeding up just a fraction as the man pulled himself further out of the doze that he’d been in. He turned into Tony and nestled his head into the mess of curls under his chin, and then rested his own hand lightly down against his chest, just over Tony’s. 643 and counting. “It’ll still be there when you wake up,” he murmured.

Tony scoffed. “Promises, promises.”

“Hey,” Steve said, “I’m Captain America. I don’t lie.”

651, 652, 653, 654. Tony rolled his eyes. “You know what? We’re having an electricity-free week when we get home. I refuse to let you near any of it again. You can’t be trusted.”

Steve laughed. “I’ve always said we should try camping, but you just laughed at me.”

“Well, I’m a changed man now. Camping’s on the agenda. I’ll cancel all my meetings.” He paused, before widening his eyes. “But before I go _full_ electronics free though, I have to go talk to DUM-E and tell him we’re both okay. I think he thinks it’s all his fault. He’ll be hiding in a corner somewhere with his little claw all droopy and I can’t just let him sulk like that, he won’t be happy again until I tell him he’s a good boy-“

Steve interrupted him with a delicate kiss against his mouth. Tony hummed. “You spend as much time with DUM-E as you want,” he agreed fondly, “but I’m holding you to the camping thing, though.”

Tony nodded, eyes starting to droop at the sound of Steve’s quiet voice. His body truly was exhausted, pushed to the limit both physically and emotionally. It’d been a long day, after all. “I’m serious ‘bout the electricity thing,” he mumbled as he shut his eyes and snuggled down against Steve’s side, “you’re not allowed to touch it again. Any form at all.”

“Not even to make you coffee?”

Tony pondered that for a moment, before shaking his head. “Not worth it,” he decided, hearing Steve whistle above his head.

“Wow,” the man said, “that’s some dedication ya got there, Stark. What about if I want to text you when you’re in Japan though? Then what?”

That was a little more compelling, admittedly. Some very _interesting_ things had been sent across their secure line in times when either of them had been away for whatever reason. Tony chewed his lip as he thought. “Send all dirty pictures via first-class airmail,” he landed on in the end with a nod of finality.  

Steve’s chest heaved with quiet laughter, and his hand tightened around Tony’s fondly. “Sexting via carrier-pigeon. How very World-War-Two of you.”

Both of them huffed in amusement, before settling down into a few moments of silence. Tony could still hear the heart-monitor on the other side of the room, confirming what Tony could hear under his own fingers. He knew that he wasn’t going to forget what had happened any time soon. Then again, there were a lot of things that he couldn’t forget. That was, unfortunately, just part of the package deal. Tony could live with it- at least it would only return in his dreams, and not reality.

He leaned forward, pressing his mouth over Steve’s heart. “I love you so much,” he whispered, the thrum of Steve’s pulse thumping through his lips, “never do that to me again.”

“I love you too,” Steve responded, “and I won’t if you promise never to give me a reason to.”

Tony stilled. There were a lot of things he wanted to say to that: _I’m not worth your life, that’d never be a worthy reason to put yourself in harm’s way, you matter so much more than I ever will._ But he knew they weren’t things that Steve wanted to hear. They weren’t things that Steve would agree with either- despite Tony’s crippling self esteem issues, even _he_ knew that much. “Touché,” he muttered in the end, leaving it at that. He couldn’t see up above him, but he imagined that Steve was probably smiling triumphantly. He always did, when Tony accepted defeat. The asshole.

With no other words left to say, Tony felt himself finally drift, the 679th count of Steve’s heart finally sending him off to sleep.


End file.
